Even as suppliers struggle to cope with the demand, this is a great time to buy a new TV. The mid-level market is more competitive than ever. Nowadays, you can get a lot for less than $ 1,000, and prices continue to fall as our eyes reap the rewards.
Vizio M-Series is among the best of the very closely combined. It has quantum dots for brighter colors, local dimming for deeper blacks, a variable refresh rate for games, and a current price of 55 inches below $ 700. A TV that marks all these boxes is rarely so accessible. If you are in the market for a new flat screen, this is very good news for your wallet.
The black box
When shopping in person, it can be difficult to choose between good mid-range TVs because they all look the same. Unfortunately, the M-series is no different. Like various mid-priced models from TCL, Samsung and LG, it is about an inch and a half thick with relatively thin bezels. It comes with a fairly versatile looking plastic remote control that has several hot keys for streaming services.
You will want to mount this on a wall unless you have a large TV stand. It has legs close to the edges, not a center pedestal, which means you’ll need a stand that’s about as long as the TV itself. This will not work in every living room.
All this is due to the fact that the whole business model of Vizio is to use the highest level of technology and introduce it into something affordable. This means compromises in aesthetics. So you won’t look like a razor here, you will do get Vizio’s excellent backlight technology and iQ processing engine.
The company’s local backlight dimming technology can be turned off or dimmed based on the content being played. In super dark scenes, some of the 32 backlight zones are able to achieve different brightnesses, so you get less gray and something closer to black.
Local dimming is not as good as with organic LED or OLED technology, where each pixel has its own backlight, but definitely improves the quality of the contrast. Vizio’s experience in technology is fully demonstrated with this new M Series. Watching darker shows like Strange things and The mandolin, I noticed that everything still manages to look fresh and clean, with just a touch of light color (where you get a halo around bright objects on a dark background).
I should note that this model has HDMI 2.1 ports – an earlier model from the 2021 M series comes with HDMI 2.0 ports, but this has been removed here. This upgraded port supports the eArc standard for easy setup of the audio tape, which instantly integrates with the TV remote control. And you Must use a soundbar or a set of speakers because the sound of the TV is quite tinny, although it sounds better than thinner TVs.